Evernote has been an extremely valuable tool in EDC 503 and I believe that this tool will be invaluable as I delve further into my studies and into my teaching career. I am still at a point where I am thinking about the best way to organize my data and utilize the features of Evernote. I have tried out different notebooks, tags, and naming protocols. By experimenting with different options, I have tweaked the setup to a point where I am comfortable. Although I want to start off with a solid setup so that I do not have go back and ‘fix’ it, I do believe that my Evernote usage will continue to evolve for awhile as I figure out how I will best use the tool going forward.
In this class, I have used Evernote to take class notes, chapter notes, do my homework. Without access to this data, I would have been lost. Even though I experienced technical difficulties and had to use 2 different computers and an iPad, my data was always accessible!
My plan is to organize my TCP notebooks by class (subject and number). EDC 503 is my first class, so I only have one class notebook setup so far. Within my EDC 503 notebook stack, I have 3 notebooks: class notes, chapter notes, and homework. In the ‘class notes’ notebook, each note has the date in the title so that I can easily identify the notes for a particular class. It was helpful to review notes for a previous class to ensure that I had completed assignments or reviewed suggestions that were not included in the syllabus. To help manage these assignments and suggestions, I experimented with the reminders feature and may use this more in the future to help with ‘to do’ items. The ‘chapter notes’ notebook has a separate note for each book that I read. Each note has the title of the book and the authors name in the title. The third notebook within the EDC 503 notebook is ‘homework’. I do not have a naming convention for these notes but their titles explain what the assignment is. The lack of naming convention seems to work fine for this folder.
I follow many education experts and education organizations on Twitter and on News Feeds. The information contained on these sites is current and invaluable. Prior to Evernote, I would read articles and bookmark the ones which I wanted to keep. Now I use Evernote Web Clipper to ‘clip’ these articles and send them to Evernote where they are organized and stored in a notebook for the specific topic (e.g. Classroom Management, Technology in the Classroom, Lesson Ideas, etc.). In addition, if I see an article that is interesting to me but that I do not have time to read, I ‘clip’ it and put it in Evernote in my ‘*Imports’ folder (note the asterisk in front puts this folder in the beginning of my sort). This allows me to read the article when I have the time. If the article is not of interest to me, I delete it. If I want to keep the article, I will put it in an existing notebook which I have setup by topic. This has been very helpful because, in the past, I lost track of many articles which I had intended to read but did not have the time.
I am experimenting with tags, but because I do not have a lot of data at this point, I have not reaped the benefits of using this feature. I do believe that this feature will be useful as I gather more data. For example, I am sure that in my future classes, I will be assigned the task of creating lesson plans. I will probably want to put these in my ‘homework’ notebook for that particular class stack, however, I will assign a tag of ‘Lesson Plan’ or maybe something more specific like ‘Math Lesson Plan’, so that I can view all of my lesson plans quickly and orderly.
I utilized the note links functionality to allow myself to easily access notes and articles relating to Education Reform Resources. I created a note with sections for ‘General’, ‘Books’ and ‘Web Articles’. In the General section, I have note links to my Education Reform Timeline, RIDE Strategic Plan 2010-2015, and Race to the Top Application for Initial Funding. In the ‘Books’ section, I have note links to all of the books which I read for this class so that I can easily access my chapter notes. And, in the ‘Web Articles’ section, I have note links to the various web articles which I chose to save relating to educational reform. As I am writing this, I am thinking that I would be better off using tags to accomplish what I want and I will probably be adding some ‘Reform’ tags! However, I do think that I will create new notebook and continue to use note links to link to all of the books that I read (assigned in TCP and on my own). It may be helpful to have a complete list of books to easily access my chapter notes. I need to give this one some more thought!
One feature which I experimented with was sending a picture directly to Evernote from my phone. One way in which I can see myself using this email feature in the future is to store a picture of a student/class project. Another piece of functionality which I experimented with, but did not use in this class, was marking up an item using Skitch. However, in the beginning of our class, I did reference our class picture which was modified using Skitch to include student names. I am sure that there are many valuable ways for a teacher to use this feature.
Evernote will also help me in my personal life. I have a pile of torn-out pages from magazines. These pages have information that I do not want to lose, but I rarely go back to. My plan is to take a picture of the pages, or scan them, and organize them in a ‘Personal’ notebook stack which will have notebooks for recipes, finance, parenting, etc. This will allow me to easily find and access the data and get rid of my piles of paper!
I am very happy that I was introduced to this tool at the start of my program. The information that I compile in my readings, assignments, and my own personal readings (news feeds, twitter, national news sites, educational news sites, etc.) will be helpful in my career as a teacher. The ability to track, organize, and easily access data is very empowering.
In this class, I have used Evernote to take class notes, chapter notes, do my homework. Without access to this data, I would have been lost. Even though I experienced technical difficulties and had to use 2 different computers and an iPad, my data was always accessible!
My plan is to organize my TCP notebooks by class (subject and number). EDC 503 is my first class, so I only have one class notebook setup so far. Within my EDC 503 notebook stack, I have 3 notebooks: class notes, chapter notes, and homework. In the ‘class notes’ notebook, each note has the date in the title so that I can easily identify the notes for a particular class. It was helpful to review notes for a previous class to ensure that I had completed assignments or reviewed suggestions that were not included in the syllabus. To help manage these assignments and suggestions, I experimented with the reminders feature and may use this more in the future to help with ‘to do’ items. The ‘chapter notes’ notebook has a separate note for each book that I read. Each note has the title of the book and the authors name in the title. The third notebook within the EDC 503 notebook is ‘homework’. I do not have a naming convention for these notes but their titles explain what the assignment is. The lack of naming convention seems to work fine for this folder.
I follow many education experts and education organizations on Twitter and on News Feeds. The information contained on these sites is current and invaluable. Prior to Evernote, I would read articles and bookmark the ones which I wanted to keep. Now I use Evernote Web Clipper to ‘clip’ these articles and send them to Evernote where they are organized and stored in a notebook for the specific topic (e.g. Classroom Management, Technology in the Classroom, Lesson Ideas, etc.). In addition, if I see an article that is interesting to me but that I do not have time to read, I ‘clip’ it and put it in Evernote in my ‘*Imports’ folder (note the asterisk in front puts this folder in the beginning of my sort). This allows me to read the article when I have the time. If the article is not of interest to me, I delete it. If I want to keep the article, I will put it in an existing notebook which I have setup by topic. This has been very helpful because, in the past, I lost track of many articles which I had intended to read but did not have the time.
I am experimenting with tags, but because I do not have a lot of data at this point, I have not reaped the benefits of using this feature. I do believe that this feature will be useful as I gather more data. For example, I am sure that in my future classes, I will be assigned the task of creating lesson plans. I will probably want to put these in my ‘homework’ notebook for that particular class stack, however, I will assign a tag of ‘Lesson Plan’ or maybe something more specific like ‘Math Lesson Plan’, so that I can view all of my lesson plans quickly and orderly.
I utilized the note links functionality to allow myself to easily access notes and articles relating to Education Reform Resources. I created a note with sections for ‘General’, ‘Books’ and ‘Web Articles’. In the General section, I have note links to my Education Reform Timeline, RIDE Strategic Plan 2010-2015, and Race to the Top Application for Initial Funding. In the ‘Books’ section, I have note links to all of the books which I read for this class so that I can easily access my chapter notes. And, in the ‘Web Articles’ section, I have note links to the various web articles which I chose to save relating to educational reform. As I am writing this, I am thinking that I would be better off using tags to accomplish what I want and I will probably be adding some ‘Reform’ tags! However, I do think that I will create new notebook and continue to use note links to link to all of the books that I read (assigned in TCP and on my own). It may be helpful to have a complete list of books to easily access my chapter notes. I need to give this one some more thought!
One feature which I experimented with was sending a picture directly to Evernote from my phone. One way in which I can see myself using this email feature in the future is to store a picture of a student/class project. Another piece of functionality which I experimented with, but did not use in this class, was marking up an item using Skitch. However, in the beginning of our class, I did reference our class picture which was modified using Skitch to include student names. I am sure that there are many valuable ways for a teacher to use this feature.
Evernote will also help me in my personal life. I have a pile of torn-out pages from magazines. These pages have information that I do not want to lose, but I rarely go back to. My plan is to take a picture of the pages, or scan them, and organize them in a ‘Personal’ notebook stack which will have notebooks for recipes, finance, parenting, etc. This will allow me to easily find and access the data and get rid of my piles of paper!
I am very happy that I was introduced to this tool at the start of my program. The information that I compile in my readings, assignments, and my own personal readings (news feeds, twitter, national news sites, educational news sites, etc.) will be helpful in my career as a teacher. The ability to track, organize, and easily access data is very empowering.